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These Guided Meditations in VR Teach Smokers How to Quit

The applications of virtual reality are only beginning to be discovered, but they are already being used in several fields, from training the use of prosthetic limbs to teaching autistic youngsters how to drive. It has even been used to treat PTSD in combination with Cue Exposure Therapy. Likewise, coping skills training has been successfully used to help people deal with alcoholism and other addictions. Now paired with all the perks of meditation, MindCotine is offering the first-ever VR mindfulness program to help people quit smoking.

MindCotine guides you through mindfulness meditations that empower you to reject addiction. Every session occurs in a virtual environment and simulates a high-risk situation that may tempt you to smoke, thus identifying potential cues, like your office crush inviting you out for a cigarette break, a night out for drinks with your friends, or a stressful unexpected situation. In each VR meditation, users practice potential responses to reject smoking, training for when these situations present themselves in real life.

Thanks to its biofeedback monitoring system, the app knows how your body is responding to the program in real-time. These exercises help users stay calm and overcome the craving to smoke, and identifies which cues represent risks to one's willpower. These guided exercises allow users to practice the skills necessary to cope with any given situation, while learning to read their own bodies, so that they may recognize the decisions that are in line with a motivation to quit, as well as decisions that are merely old habits.

The guided mindfulness meditations are designed to help you change old patterns of behavior, and establish new ones in a fun, immersive and engaging way, almost like a game.